Speaking to over 100 city leaders across Asia Pacific, Sjostrom highlights the three phases cities generally undergo in leveraging technology to transform citizens’ lives and solve urban challenges.
Many cities start by transforming their operations and infrastructure. “Complexity is expensive so city leaders should look at their current applications and processes and see how they can be simplified and optimised,” he notes.
Engaging citizens and businesses is the next important step, and Sjostrom cited the city of London as an example. “Leading up to the London Olympics, the City launched applications that allowed residents to report problems, such as potholes, in their neighbourhood. This drew on citizens’ participation to solve city problems efficiently, and because it was deployed in the cloud, it was fast, easily accessible and cost-efficiently.”
Finally, cities need to try to accelerate innovation and opportunities, to move from data convergent to actionable insight, while ensuring security and privacy.
Sjostrom shared a few success stories of how Microsoft has worked with cities globally through the CityNext initiative, a programme that harnesses the power of people—whether as citizens, in businesses, or in governments—to create healthier, greener, safer, and more prosperous places to live in.
Using Big Data solutions, a law enforcement agency in Thailand managed to cut investigation time from two years to 15 days. The project significantly improved the efficiency of investigating officers and prepared a platform for future optimisation.
In Mexico, the Internal Revenue Services rolled out electronic invoices in four months on a hybrid cloud. “The investment was 1/30 of the cost if the agency had done it themselves,” he adds.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Kelly Ng
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 16.04.2014
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